Copy cats. Confusion. Rhetoric.

The more South African politics changes, the more it stays the same.

The South African political landscape has changed dramatically over the past few weeks, and more recently has had a complete face change. The Democratic Alliance (DA) launched its new logo amidst allegations that they had borrowed heavily from Obama’s winning political campaign. At the same time COPE rolled out their logo and more war talk. Spin doctors and politicos from both the DA and COPE have had ample media space and verbiage, what I wanted to know is whether the new look and new party means meaningful change.

Academic and senior lecturer with the school of public and development management at the University of the Witwatersrand, Dr Ivor Sarakinsky says it doesn’t matter that the DA’s new logo looks surprisingly similar to that of Obama’s, what’s at issue is whether it will address the party’s legacy drag. “The DA has reached the thresh hold of their voting support. If they want to grow the party they will have to reinvent themselves. The only way is to get previously disadvantaged communities on board and change the legacy of the DA being a white, liberal, upper class party. To be relevant then must move from their traditional base to broad based support.”

The problem with perception is that it’s not a short term game, and in politics the issue of change is complex and strongly tied to heritage, delivery on policy and changing people’s lives and experiences. “When you talk political change what you are talking about is change at a deep level of society, which is a slow process. This is impacted by policy alongside socio-economics, service delivery and a multitude of factors that reinforce political attitudes and perceptions. What’s certain is that you can’t have a white person leading a political party if you want to make inroads into non-white constituencies.”

Sifiso Zondi from global brand and market insight company, Added Value, says that despite the DA saying the rebrand was on the cards from 2006, the move appears to be a direct response to COPE’s entry into the political arena. “The DA has always been perceived as an all white party, which has little to do with democratic relevance. I believe they saw the current context as an opportunity to appeal to a broader market and to reposition saying, “Look – we are a party for everyone.”  The logo is very close to Obama’s. If this was a brand that was done at leisure it would be far more distinctive and differentiated. It looks like it was rushed and a reaction to COPE.”

“Then if you look at the positioning – “One nation. One future.” – it is simple, understandable and people will get it. But again this is taken from the Obama campaign with it’s over riding message of hope and the United States becoming ‘one nation’.” Have another look at Obama’s campaign and see for yourself how central the ‘one nation’ concept is to his brand. During his victory speech Obama said: “In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people.” This theme was driven home earlier, like in August when Michelle Obama gave her “One Nation” speech at the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado. 

“People will notice that that the DA is a copy cat, because the DA has a constituency that uses social media. People will see the similarities online and will talk about it,” says Zondi. Already the issue has caused a flurry amongst bloggers, satirists and online political commentators with pundits Commentry SA saying under the headline “DA. Change we can’t believe in” – “Right down to the stripes it’s a little tough to imagine that the DA came up with what is effectively a straight clone of Obama’s logo all on their own. Add a few rays and pretend the voters are retarded? Seriously guys.”

While the DA fights allegations that their face-lift was lifted, the Congress of the People has much bigger fish to fry. First up is the legal battle that will see them face off against the ANC for the right to use a name they have already launched under. “It’s going to be a long fight with the ANC,” says Zondi who believes the ANC have a 50/50 chance of winning the legal battle.

“There’s strong use of ANC colours and the new logo speaks a lot to the legacy of where COPE’s leaders have come from. While it may be a good thing for COPE leaders to tap into the heritage of the ANC in the short term to create media noise, in the long term as a brand they will need to differentiate themselves completely. It appears they approached naming and branding as an afterthought. A name is the first identity of a brand or a person and the changes they have already made publicly shows laziness or hastiness in their approach. They started at the wrong end of the equation by going to the media. They should have sorted out their policies and decided how they would be different; why people should vote for them; and how they will make the lives of the poor better before slugging things out in the media,” says Zondi “I don’t think the leaders of COPE even know the values of their own brand; if they did there wouldn’t be this confusion. They are not saying why they are an alternative and what they are offering. They need to go back to the drawing board.”

Political consultant and advisor Sarakinsky says that it is going to take a lot more than symbols and personalities to draw votes. “COPE is not talking policy which is a serious issue. You cannot start a new party on personalities alone. Personalities, when they stand in front of crowd, must say something of substance. They can’t just scream, shout and use rhetoric. Negative campaigning doesn’t work as evidenced by Obama’s victory. Obama made it clear that he would not run a negative campaign against McCain and he was consistent in that. It built Obama’s moral high ground and then built his constituency. McCain went in with personal attacks and mud slinging which didn’t work. The media wants personal attacks which are headline making stuff, but at some point political candidates must put across a positive programme and it is going to be very difficult to do this based on rhetoric. If we look at what COPE has said so far their policy is very contradictory.”

On various platforms COPE has talked about defending the constitution and defending the Freedom Charter. However in the same breath they talk about the direct election of a president, the direct election of premiers and direct election of mayors. “This means a complete about face and change in the constitution. If one wants to make this happen a significant change in the constitution would need to be effected, this is not consistent with COPE’s stated policy. COPE is engaging in political entrepreneurialism and searching for something that will resonate in voting constituency regardless of whether or not it is consistent. McCain did that in the US and it clearly didn’t work.”

The problem with rhetoric is that it has no substance and Sarasinsky says when the personalities take on public platforms they will have to deal with tough questions about why they have done what they have done. “They’ve largely enjoyed safe platforms offered by media houses, but public lobbying and engagements will see tough questions coming up. Lekota was Minister of Defence and was responsible for aspects of the arms deal, and he had to see that his financial management system was in place. How many audits did he get from the auditor general? None of the media are asking these questions.”

With elections mooted for March 2009 it remains to be seen whether COPE has more substance and will begin to address real issues (as the DA has done on an ongoing basis). Matters like economic policy, social policy and service delivery. Policy that is differentiated and campaign commitments that are different to the current talk the ANC is not walking. What we’ve seen up to now is short term, very emotional and highly personalized mud slinging. None of which builds houses, creates jobs, sorts out crime or stops the rot that’s taken root in our country.